The Legend of Korra Review/Transcript
StarGiantProductions: 'Nick-o-Rama of ''Legend of Korra ''finally commences! After getting through ''Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, we finally return to The Legend of Korra! We last saw Enter do a 50+ minute review on Animated Atrocities on Book One. Has his opinion on the show changed as a whole since over two years ago and he loves the rest of the series, or has his opinion on Korra ''gotten more sour? ''(Intro) 'Announcer: '''You're watching ''The Legend of Korra! 'Korra: '''Let's do this! Considering that I made a 50+ minute atrocity review on the first season of ''Korra, it's probably very clear that...I didn't like this series very much. At the risk of getting your hopes up, I'm going to say that my opinion on the show has changed; it's grown even more sour. In fact, this is one of those shows where...every single time that I watch it, I like it less and less... The common consensus is that Korra ''season 1 is above average of your typical cartoon. Season 2 is bad, 3 is fantastic, and 4 is not as good as 3 but...still really good. In my experience, ''Korra ''season 1 is bad. It's on the level of painful ''Avatar ''fanfiction. Season 2 is ''boring and bad, up until the beginnings. Season 3 is when the show finally rises to the level of Avatar ''quality...and no where near the best that ''Avatar ''has offered. And season 4 is just okay, beneath the original ''Avatar ''series. So with even the most charitable view of ''Korra I can give...half of this show is bad. You need to slog through half of the damn thing to get to anything worthy of quality. Some people might say that it's unfair to judge The Legend of Korra ''to its ''Avatar ''pedigree, and I think that's bupkis. You slap the name on ''Avatar ''of this show, I am going to judge it by the standards of ''Avatar. This isn't some Shyamalan adaptation or a mediocre video game. This is a continuation of the world by the same writers who brought us "Tales of Ba Sing Se" and "Sozin's Comet." There is very ''little excuse for many of the mistakes that were made throughout ''Korra. The first season of the show I can't see as anything but a "fuck you" to fans of the previous series. It was established time and again that it takes...not just special talent, but it takes a lot of time and effort for the Avatar to master all of the elements. And Korra learns all of them while still in diapers! If that wasn't enough, we learn that the sky bisons apparently haven't gone extinct, we just have one that is clearly not Appa, who was established to be the last sky bison in existence, because the species was more or less extinct. It's moments like this...that would make me, in most circumstances ask: have you even seen the original series? Then I'm like, of-of course you've seen the original series, you wrote ''the damn thing. So...how did these oversights get through? Then after this, Katara's grandchildren...bring up Zuko's mother, just for it to be shut down. '''Jinora: '''What happened to Zuko's mom? '''Katara: '''Well Jinora, it's an ''incredible tale- 'Ikki: '''Gran Gran, you look old! Let me make this...very clear. This is an insult. I'm not saying that it's quote "insultingly bad," I'm saying that it's ''literally ''structured like an insult. Whether that was intentional or not. This is what you would do if you wanted to piss someone off. There is no other way for me to take this. This is on the level of "Return of Slade" from ''Teen Titans Go!; bring up the one unanswered question from the original specifically to not answer it. I mean, it's not funny, i-is it supposed to be funny? Acting like a dick towards your audience? I-I don't think so. And keep in mind, all these things happen within the first ten minutes of the show. ''Three major insults and that's how you '''''start. And season 1 and 2 are filled with moments like this. Even after the show "gets good," it still can't escape the mess that they made in season 1 and 2. In later season 2 we learn that the Fire Lord kept a bunch of sky bisons safe from the rest of the world, because as we all know, the Fire Nation was all about environmental conservation, and it's not like we had an episode with the Fire Nation trying to steal the secrets of flight. They try so ''hard to justify the mistakes of seasons 1 and 2, and every single time it makes ''Korra ''worse. And this is the 'easy 'stuff they're getting wrong by the way. The stuff that I expect ''any ''show to get right. Not just a show with the ''Avatar ''pedigree. In the original, Aang had trouble learning earthbending, cause it was a stated fact within the show's canon, that the Avatar usually has the toughest time with learning the element that's directly opposed to them. If we take the rule ''literally, Korra should have a very hard time learning fire. If we take the rule on metaphor, the value of air is freedom. You're telling me that this rebellious punk kid always sneaking out and doing whatever the hell she wants with no consideration for others has a hard time encapsulating the value of freedom, as opposed to say, change ''or ''stability, those being water and earth's respectively? I can only assume that they wanted to just name Book One "Air" because The Last Airbender ''didn't have an "air" chapter. Speaking of change though, that's apparently one of the main issues with this series. I've actually, listened to the commentaries because, the flaws of ''Korra ''were so...strange to me, and what happened here was actually something that's ''very ''understandable, but it's...very much still a mistake. The creators of ''Avatar ''were afraid to retread. They wanted this new series to be as ''different as possible from Avatar, which is definitely understandable, you don't want to rehash yourself. This is why we have things like a female Avatar this time around. This is why most of the series takes place in the Chinatown district of New York City, instead of traveling through many varied and interesting locales. And why, you know, Avatar ''is good and ''Korra ''is bad. I'm sorry, but, this is why this is a mistake. If you want to be as different as possible from good, you are going to be bad. There is no way around it. One of my biggest hangups about ''The Legend of Korra ''is how hostile...this show is to the original. Whether intentional or not. There very much does feel like a hostility towards ''The Last Airbender ''in places. I mean it resembles ''Avatar ''superficially. ''Avatar ''had, I don't know, lightningbending? ''Korra ''does too. Now these super-rare abilities are as common as day. With metalbending, y-you can kind of, explain it and debate it. Toph invented it in the original, and she would have been able to teach it to other people. You know, with Toph being the best teacher in the whole world and everything. But how do you get that with lightningbending, or even bloodbending? This is called "Spectacle Creep," and it's a 'constant 'problem in ''The Legend of Korra. Metalbending used to be a very powerful art because it was only used by very specific people. Now everyone can do it, and because everyone can do it, the show needs to pull things out of their ass to keep any sense of tension. Oh, you can't affect these robots because they're made out of platinum, a-and apparently we smelt platinum differently than we smelt iron! I-it seriously feels like two little kids, I swear. "I'm gonna beat you!" "No, well, no I'm gonna beat you times infinity!" "Well no, I'm gonna beat you infinity plus one!" Giving someone a superpower and then pulling a MacGuffin out of your ass to make the superpower not work is telling the same story with extra steps and extra filler. The only bending that's gotten worse in this series is "worldbending." Like, this is just a general fantasy thing that they keep screwing up. So, now all of the police wear metal armor because you wanna show that metalbending is more common. Okay...let's ignore the fact that there might be other metalbenders who could be criminals that could crush ''the police. It's such a shame that lightningbending is now more common, and now even nonbenders have access to electricity, and metal conducts electricity, which we...actually see clips of in the show, repeatedly. We see the police get their ass handed to them ''by electricity. It's like giving a dog catcher armor made out of raw meat. In one generation, the world of Avatar ''has gone from the Middle Ages to the 1920's. The excuse for this one was that a lot of technological development happened because there was no war. '''This is not how technological development works'. For better or worse, hostilities tend to push technological advancement. Peace leads to complacency. Did you know that Wi-Fi is based on a system for targeting guided missiles? And it's very clear that the United States would have never ''gone to the moon if Russia wasn't trying to go there first. Even within the series, these platinum robots, this technological advancement, would not exist if some ''Scooby-Doo ''villain wasn't trying to take over the world. Oh yeah, speaking of that, the entire series ends with a giant-ass robot. Made out of platinum, you know, more platinum that could exist on the planet, because of course it does. This is what jumping the shark looks like. Actually, no, episode 12 of season 1 was jumping the shark. Then giving bending powers to random nobodies for like, no reason was jumping the shark a few more times. The ending of ''Korra, season 4, is...is ridiculous. This is...silly. I-I have no other words. It's like we've gone from a show that was inspired by anime to a show that's trying to parody anime. And taking itself dead seriously ''as it's doing it. And that's...another thing that ''really does bug me about The Legend of Korra. This show does such ''terrible things to the world of ''Avatar, and it breaks down the tightly established lore so much, that I can see great difficulties in seeing the series continue at all, without completely ignoring'' Legend of Korra''. Any future series is going to be "the sky bison were alive the entire time" for every single episode. This is because this is Jenga tower of worldbuilding. You keep throwing on new stuff without any adherence to how it all builds together, until it finally comes tumbling down. There's a reason that Korra ''essentially needed to restart its show halfway through season 2. This is not something that a series should have to do. And speaking of Korra, I hate to say it but, at least until "The Beginnings," where she debatably became an entirely new character, I ''really ''do not like this character. A lot of what I don't like about Korra, has to do with the time that the show came out. At the time it was a hard sell to put a female as the main character in a series, especially as an action series. So, when there was a female in the front seat, they need to be very "in-your-face" about it. They also tended to be very inconsiderate and were never really called out on it. Korra fits the bill to a tee on this one. And I'd imagine, for many, that the series might actually be hard to go back to because of how abrasive she is. Korra does a lot of not just bad, but 'terrible 'things in the first two seasons. Like "The Love Triangle." Korra kisses Mako for 'no 'other reason than the fact that Mako is dating Asami. That is sadistic and it makes me not like this character in ''any ''sense of the word. And doing it right in front of the Bolin is terrible writing. I will blame a lot of the reason why this is such a bad show on the time that it came out. I will also blame it for why it's so praised and why it was so popular. After all, a show with the ''Avatar ''name coming out around now, w-would definitely seek a certain type of audience. Nickelodeon wasn't batting a thousand in the early 2010s if you haven't been paying attention. ''The Legend of Korra ''is just...incompetent. There is no...other way to say it. Like, with Mako for instance, I showed his design to several people, and they were very clear; this is not a main character design, this is a ''background character design at best. This isn't just a simple mistake. This is a mistake that hobbyists don't make. Not to mention, professional people who have been working in the industry. And of course, there are the things that prove their lack of foresight, having a character named General Iroh, and giving him Zuko's voice. Despite the fact that this series has another General Iroh and it actually is going to have Zuko as a character. I get that they didn't know that they were going to have more seasons to showcase the original Iroh but, what was the excuse to giving him Zuko's voice? Why would you do that? Give me one good reason. At least have Dante Basco change it up a little bit. I know I have harped on this particular flaw...few times in this marathon, but this is one of the worst cases of a same exact voice that I've ever come across. And not to mention it's kind of insulting to the character to basically have his character be on a boat for all four seasons and just basically get orders not to do things. Seriously, I can't remember one thing of substance that this General Iroh did. Besides getting told to stay on a boat and not do anything. And...I have to say this...twelfth episode of the first season had made me more mad than just about any ''other cartoon episode that I have ''ever ''seen. And I'm talking from like, any show that I've ever watched. If I wasn't ''insanely loyal to the series, I would have cut it off right then and there. I have a feeling that Shyamalan could have treated that episode better. I'm not going to go too deep into it here and now, that's what my review is for, but there is ''no excuse ''to the answers that were given for the whole of season 1. Amon is actually a bender because why not? We don't need to have any depth and we want to shoot any theming and tone in the foot! It's not like there are real people in the real world who honestly believe in social movements like this and turn equality into pleas for hatred. Korra can still airbend even though she got her bending taken away because we don't give a shit anymore! Korra gets her powers back, because this story is happy end and we can't have any of the three-year-olds teary-eyed. It's not like this franchise expects its audience to be "mature" or anything. And Korra's able to give powers back to everyone else because we need to wrap up literally every single possibility! Except Zuko's mom. Fuck you, you can still buy our graphic novels and figure that one out for yourself. And when we do manage to get another season, we'll have Korra use the Avatar state to race a couple of kids! Let's just ignore the fact that if she dies in the Avatar state, the Avatar don't exist anymore! So i-i-it's kind of a big deal! Yes it's within her character! That's a good summation of why I don't like her character at all. I wanna be very clear, I don't have any resentment towards the writers or the creators. They've just written a bad chapter in a series that I did at one point like. And...there is...no way that I am going to defend this, just because I like them as creators. I want the franchise to be good, if it's more like this, I will be...very worried and I will...probably not be a fan of the franchise anymore. This series wouldn't make me so angry or so upset, if they weren't able to tap into the powerful emotions, and this amazing storytelling from...the original Avatar: The Last Airbender. The original will always be good I think, no matter how many sky bisons that the Fire Lord had in hiding. 'Announcer: '''Next on Nickelodeon, it's- ''(Shows clip of Robot and Monster theme) (End Credits Theme: "Leaves From the Vine" from the Avatar episode "The Tales of Ba Sing Se") Category:Nick-o-Rama Category:Transcripts